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RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
Moral is in the gutter, I have temporarily developed a nasty case of builders block.
The guitar I’m making that’s been the subject of this article is for a left handed player. And I’ve never built a commission for a left handed player, I’ve set up left handed guitars on rare occasion, but the particular demands of this customer are turning me off so hard I’m on the verge of refunding the deposit and cutting ties. I’m not into firing customers but this is giving me a stress level I never experienced before. In the mean time while figure out what to do I’ve turned attention to other commissions and my new double bass I’ve just acquired. This negra should have been done last week, but I’m stuck because the customer is such a dork.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
It's the damn coved or 2020 or somthing in the air...
I've had some issues last few monthes. Sold my airplane last month, just sold the floats for it yesterday, flying was the soul of my life, literal wings, life changes as do needs and prioriteas, just recall that no mater how bad it seems, how ugly humanity becomes, we have it better then centuries past and our lifestyle may not be financially the one percent we really are living a dream. We are not picking through a trash heap for our food or living in fear of a crystalnock event. We are the chosen ones in so many ways. We can get online and bitch about anything or nothing more padantic then what is flamenco, what strings should I use, or what nomanclature for a cord progression, all the while I'm thinking no gattanao is his right mind would be doing this, most scratching a life out of meager means, beating an anvil all day on a bowl of beans, as a child I turned the bellows for my ferrior father, fill up on rice and beans he would half joke at the dinner table. BTW: Damn if I didn't make the best pot of moose rib bone beans the other night... Food of my people! Had a few shouting matches with the boss which is not somthing ether of use do, then I feel too guilty to go out into the shop to work on guitars, I put my head down and go through my boring as F physical therapy routine for hours, searching and searching for my F'n bootstraps... No one can do it but ourselves... I'm almost there. Finished up dinner and I'm dieing to get out and start a set of canary yellow teak pegs for my andulsian themed parlor, I've got the woods for my next set of flamenco run through the drum sander, just need to candle the seams and start gluing the five piece backs and three piece sides, and still no idea how I'm going to rosette them.
Olé!
Screw em Stephan, show us what you got, and screw that snob, build him the best guitar you have and when he comes over to pick him up, let him play it, and when he is ready to leave, tear up his check and tell him to F off, tell him he is not worthy of a Faulk guitar, tell him there is too much honor in what you build to share with a bitch, and when you sit down at your meager dinner, recall that there is no shame in warm pot of beans.
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
I think HR just did a much better job than I managed to do the other day. I still blame the pain meds, which in the past couple weeks probably add up to more than I’ve ever taken in my entire lifetime and they’re still not enough, but HR is on a pile of them, too, and he did a better job.
I think finish that guitar, replace the FB if necessary, whatever it takes. It’ll hang off your neck like an albatross if you don’t. Don’t fire the customer, when all is done just spend his money on things that make you happy.
I’ve been totally messed up regarding building recently. I haven’t made it into my shop yet this year, and there’s stuff sitting on the bench unattended.
On a positive note...new double bass sounds cool. Hope you can find the time to do a thread on it.
Posts: 3446
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana Whenever I get a message from this customer I become catatonic and resist the urge to write back and say; “ It rubs lotion on itself.”
Since I'm not in your shoes, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but from the outside looking in it seems like a good way to get rid of the bad mojo might be what ernandez R says: finish the guitar to your high standards, then tell him to go f*** himself--but keep the money. I'm sure you can insult him badly enough to p1ss him off for weeks. Definitely keep the money, and spend it the best way you can come up with, muttering "There, you son of a bitch" for each yen you plunk down.
Posts: 3467
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to RobF)
quote:
Take the high road, Stephen, you know you have to. This too shall pass.
I second Rob's advice, Stephen. Take the high road. You don't want to bring yourself down to the level of the lowest common denominator. By exhibiting grace in the face of ignorance, you demonstrate that you're the better man.
This promises to be a rainy Friday evening, and I plan to enjoy a copita of jerez in front of the fireplace.
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to BarkellWH)
Bill, pour an extra one for me next time.
Yes I’ll go high, after being forced to account for and prove that the air resonances of the guitar were as he read in a magazine they were supposed to be, after he called me a cheat for using Ziricote instead of garden variety Indian rosewood, after we agreed that I’d make a left handed guitar that could be converted to a right handed guitar. They demanded change orders that would make it impossible to turn it back into a right handed guitar. I couldn’t care less, but the change orders weren’t original, and he’s getting a student discount. But my concern is he’ll not be happy even if all these demands are met, and I don’t want after sale back talk.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
They demanded change orders that would make it impossible to turn it back into a right handed guitar.
Maybe tell him the changes mean the guitar is a custom order and, as such, the sale will be final and as is. If he pushes back on it, drop him and sell it to someone who’s more appreciative and less likely to become a chronic condition.
He lost me at demanding specific air resonances...what a maroon.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
A maroon, or a macaroon.
Yes, I tolerated a lot of nonsense. Which is why I stopped working on it until I can decide to withdraw from the commission. It’s not like I want to, but I can see he’s the type of person that will not be happy and I don’t know if it’s worth being on the after sale receiving end of that chatter. You can tell a customer that they got what they paid for, but they might not agree. I had a guy like this in 2014 and it dragged on for two years of him being a bitter piece of $hit over a guitar he finally sold. Funny story, Casey on the foro bought it and traded it back to me in part for a new guitar. I have the 2014 guitar and there’s nothing wrong with it, I use it to teach my guitar class.
I suppose I should just finish this one and get paid, then cut off the communication. But this kind of stuff just totally screws up the flow of my shop projects, you have to break stride and change your work path. If I have to change my work path, which instruments are at which stages of completion, for one person that person is wasting my time.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to RobF)
quote:
He lost me at demanding specific air resonances...what a maroon.
We had a volley of emailing for a day and half during which he demanded to by instructed in what I know about the air resonance stuff ( which is not too in-depth) then he send me magazine articles or things he found on the internet to challenge me on it, and demanded I defend my knowledge compared to the crap he cut and pasted. Ok, I got through that and I got a bit mad at him. The next week he sent me a note saying he didn’t understand why I didn’t use a true dalbergia rosewood and gave him inferior Ziricote. I said Ziricote is considered by many to be an upgrade and we agreed on a ‘negra’ and I would pick from my wood supply. That exchange lasted two days. Then he added a 20th fret, fine that’s a no charge courtesy extra in my shop. No charge. But that pins it to being a ‘lefty’ not a guitar you can swap out the nut on and flip the saddle. See I said I’ll make a lefty if IF you agree it will be a switchable guitar if you don’t like it. Lefties are REALLY hard to sell and I don’t want to deal with this in a year or two if you switch to a new guitar.
That’s why I feel stuck, I don’t want my reputation trashed because someone who thinks I need to defend the air resonance pitches is calling judgment on my work. If he doesn’t like the sound, he might say “well I tested the resonances myself and you didn’t get the right pitches” it’s a nightmare.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
That’s why I feel stuck, I don’t want my reputation trashed because someone who thinks I need to defend the air resonance pitches is calling judgment on my work.
I think it might be time to cut bait and let this one go. Stay on the high road and politely explain that, while your creation stands on its own merit, you are concerned that it may not fully align with his expectations and you feel it would be best to return his deposit and part company. Clean break..no hard feelings extended, no recriminations presented and none accepted. It simply didn’t work out.
As far as the guitar goes...at the moment, it might feel tainted, but that won’t always be the case. I wouldn’t go throwing it in the fire or anything like that. At some point you’ll complete it and it’ll go to someone who’s really going to appreciate it. That’s where it belongs.
But yeah, it sucks to have had your time wasted in such a manner, you could have been using it to earn money with a different project and you have every right to be pissed. Just don’t let him know that, don’t give him the satisfaction. Clean break.
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
I’m a lefty and for 30 years played right handed guitars with the strings and nut switched. A buddy of mine got a Lester DeVoe and urged me to do the same. The terms were all the money up front, no returns. I’ve had it three years and I’m very happy with it. I don’t think left handed players have a lot of options so I’d play hardball with this fellow.
Posts: 15242
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
I had a guy like this in 2014 and it dragged on for two years of him being a bitter piece of $hit over a guitar he finally sold. Funny story, Casey on the foro bought it and traded it back to me in part for a new guitar. I have the 2014 guitar and there’s nothing wrong with it, I use it to teach my guitar class.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
This excellent one?
No, that was the first one he rejected and I shouldn’t have budged by making him a replacement. After he dramatically rejected it, you so kindly took that one and played it to show that it was fine. Then it went through some limbo for a couple months and finally ended up with a foro member who still has it. The one I have from 2014 is the second one he rejected, with some insulting. He said his students could even tell it had nothing going for it. I have it now, it’s made of black acacia, and I’m keeping it.
Starting in 2010 or 11 I did a run of student guitars made of Port Orford cedar backs and spruce tops. I think I set the price at $3000- I made several and it worked nicely for both customer and myself. Then a few new orders came and I accepted another run of these and the 2014 guy got in the second run....
But thank you for your confident support and excellent playing. I think also what clinched it was the video the restaurant manager made of you accompanying two singers por buleria with the guitar in these videos.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
I'm glad a few of you have been recommended taking the high road, eating crow can taste like **** even with a good pot of beans.
Funny, Sometimes I get hung up when I can't make somthing good enough for my own standards. So there it sits unfinished and the guilt builds up... If I'm lucky somthing shakes me out of it or I find a way to start over, one day a couple years ago I was trying to trim out an old log cabin and was going mad cause there was not a square or plumb edge to be found, I was installing wainscoting, anyway one day as I was putting my glasses into my work shirt pocket I stopped, put them back on my desk in the house and walked out the door. Everyone loves the cabin and only I can see the trim corners and edges are not quite true, you know, when I'm wearing my glasses. Funny, I was about a year into my building guitar adventure when I realized I needed to wear my glasses at all times...
Not funny, I'm stuck on a shellac top that's not good enough for me. I got some crud in my munuca and made two swearly scratches, might have been a fold that got in there as I was using less oil. I know the whole f'n thing needs to be sanded back, a few areas of pits and what might be a fingernail dent when the lady it is for was playing it in the white. Must Wear Glasses... The darn thing won't fix itself, yesterday I went and did too much outside and pissed off my foot so now I'm off it for a day or two... Fun times. Think I'll do some retail therapy, order up some different shellac to play with, fix up another bowl of moose rib red beans, we were out of pintos, and who knows, it's inly 3:13pm, but a glass of black box cab sounds about right ;)
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to ernandez R)
Well a few days distance from you know who’s emails and I got back into it to finish it. It must be finished no matter what, so I had the come to Jesus talk with myself and decided we would partition off our emotional life from customer throwing Molotov cocktails at our ego and have a nice plum spirit drink.
I’m undecided on what’s going to happen , but clear on how to finish it. That’s all that matters.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
I'm not really sure...
I made my way to a point where I've come to trust putting on the finish sans bridge, on my 23" parlors anyway, looking forward to having not to battle around the edge of the bridge. Think the top for me is just a mind game, my backs and sides, even around the neck joint look good. If there are ten ways to bugger up the top I've done it, if there are twenty... Since I scratched up the top I mentioned up thread I've let her sit. Pretty sure I'm going to get medieval on her with some 600 and start again...
Long time ago I figured out how important it was to watch the hands and listen to the voice, was a airplane fabric covering dvd with a new non organic solvent process. The old guy would do ten things with his hands his mouth didn't have time to explain. Was a great way to cure insomnia too ;), got to the point I would watch at 4x speed just to see how he conquered problem areas.
Think it would be great to have a time laps of of the full deal, I've watched a lot of FP vids and gleaned some magic here and there but all were missing somthing. Guess that somthing was that stickiness your palm gets as you tap the pad on it, or that smell released when you are working the finish hard, or that grind to a right now **** when the pad sticks cause you didn't press hard enough or put enough muscle into it.
This last goaround I took some whip tips from my CA kit and pushed them into the backside of the spout of my shellac and alcohol bottles to really be carful and keep track of each drop of fluid.
Tell us more about the board you use to rub your pad after charging it please. First time I've seen this.
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Actually the guitar was for sale in the past, now it´s sold. I´d be interested to know what happened to the shop. It´s been inactive since mid-2019, I think the owner had some health issues. It was a very good shop, I managed to get very good guitars from him at a very good prices. All his guitars I got from him were either very good, or outstanding. Last time I checked to enquire about him, but he was not responding. Sad.
On the 1953 Sobrinos, what was your opinion about the guitar? (sorry I didn´t spot your previous post on it, you could just redirect me there if you replied already to this question).
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
Ok, I did take something worth a squirt bottle of gold, you move across the wood a lot slower, I took my unfinished number one out to the shop and worked the back. I’ll post fotos on the yellow shellac thread I started.
Thanx!
HR
_____________________________
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to ernandez R)
The board is to put drops of oil on, then pick them up with the pad. And the maple swatch is to pass the pad back and forth on to make sure it loaded with the correct mixture of shellac, alcohol and oil. Nothing worse than skinning or burning a hole in your shellac film. I don’t use it every I put shellac on the pad, but in the beginning of a session it provides a surface with a shellac film to warm up on and get the pad squeezed out to the right feel of laying the shellac down.
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RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to Carlos_ffm)
The 1953 Sobrinos wasn’t powerful, it was charming, I didn’t really like playing it, but I only had it a few days so maybe I didn’t have time to get it. I though it was like a Domingo Esteso more than a classic 1970’s Faustino. The bass strings had a funky softness that was not unlike the Domingo sound.
Physically it felt fragile, like you were self conscious of the age and tenderness of the thin wood. The neck was awkward in a pleasant way. It was definitely not a guitar you’d take to a cuadro situation so it was not a contemporary players guitar. But it was a home guitar or something you’d give a concert of Tarrega’s music on and it would sound better than a modern double top with ramped up horsepower.
It was like Carles Trepat playing his Torres rather than Paco ripping on a big Conde’ negra.
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
The 1953 Sobrinos wasn’t powerful, it was charming, I didn’t really like playing it, but I only had it a few days so maybe I didn’t have time to get it. I though it was like a Domingo Esteso more than a classic 1970’s Faustino. The bass strings had a funky softness that was not unlike the Domingo sound.
Physically it felt fragile, like you were self conscious of the age and tenderness of the thin wood. The neck was awkward in a pleasant way. It was definitely not a guitar you’d take to a cuadro situation so it was not a contemporary players guitar. But it was a home guitar or something you’d give a concert of Tarrega’s music on and it would sound better than a modern double top with ramped up horsepower.
It was like Carles Trepat playing his Torres rather than Paco ripping on a big Conde’ negra.
Thank you Stephen/estebana for the detailed feedback, very kind of you to have answered, and very interesting as well to know that a 1953 Sobrinos could be closer to an Esteso than to a 1970´s Faustino.
I realised after asking that I inserted my question in the middle of a discussion you had on another issue which was of a concern to you, hence the efforts you made to answer my question are very well appreciated!
RE: Building two under influence of ... (in reply to estebanana)
Bring it on. Heard mention of a Bass in your shop.
Tried to get Simon to bring back his E guitar thread but no joy.
HR
_____________________________
I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
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